If you live in Schenectady, New York, then you have the highest effective property tax rate in the Capital Region, according to a new report out this week from conservative think tank, the Empire Center. Read More
Category: Media Coverage
E.J. McMahon joined Liz Benjamin on Capital Tonight to discuss the special $50 million tax credit that state lawmakers created for music producers and video game developers. Read More
Senate last week quietly passed a handful of spending measures that steered $56 million to 1,675 pet projects across the state, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. The measures did not identify the individual lawmaker that requested the money and they provided few details about how the funds are to be used, according to the Empire Center’s report. Read More
The school-budget votes this year included more property-tax-cap overrides and a drop in voter turnout, a report from a school group showed. Read More
It has taken a lot longer than a proverbial New York minute. As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, a company called Valutek promised in 2011 to relocate to upstate New York from Arizona. The state even spent millions of dollars on ads bragging about luring the high-tech firm. But five years later, Valutek still has not moved. CBS2’s Aiello was demanding answers Wednesday as to why. Read More
“STAR was the first in a line of many gimmicks to address high property taxes without addressing the reasons for the high property taxes,” said Ken Girardin, spokesman for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. “The (tax relief) checks are a calculated effort to distract from the hard choices the state Legislature won’t make.” Read More
Since last year, more than five-hundred people have gotten permission from the state to double dip on public pensions and their salaries from state or local governments. Your tax dollars are paying for it. Read More
An obscure state agency has postponed approval of a nearly half-billion-dollar payment to a centerpiece of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's upstate economic development plan. Read More